Chapter 32 - My Mother’s SignatureMom read the document twice.
Then a third time.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Camille remained standing.
“Your signature is on it.”
“That is not my signature.”
Dad looked carefully.
“It looks like yours.”
Mom turned on him.
“I know what my name looks like, Gerald.”
Aunt Teddy took the document.
She examined it under the dining room light.
“When was this signed?”
“1988.”
Teddy’s expression changed.
“What?”
Everyone looked at her.
She walked to a cabinet and pulled out an old photo album.
“What are you doing?” Mom asked.
Teddy flipped through pages.
Then stopped.
She pointed.
A wedding photograph.
Mom and Dad.
Date stamped on the back.
June 18, 1988.
The Mercer document had been signed June 19.
In Richmond.
But Mom and Dad had been honeymooning in Bermuda.
“I didn’t come home until the twenty-sixth,” Mom whispered.
Camille frowned.
“Can you prove that?”
Mom actually laughed.
“Honey, I kept every receipt from that honeymoon because Gerald tried to claim I spent too much on rum cake.”
Dad looked offended.
“It was fourteen cakes.”
Within an hour, Mom produced airline tickets, hotel bills, dated photographs.
She could not have signed the document.
Someone forged her name.
Why?
We returned to the files.
Mercer Family Holdings had received $480,000.
Three days later, the money moved again.
Into another account.
Then disappeared.
Camille rubbed her temples.
“So my mother’s shares were sold without her knowledge, using a fake holding company managed under Diane’s forged identity.”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Nobody knew.
Dad said, “My father?”
It was possible.
But something bothered Aunt Teddy.
“My brother was many things.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“Controlling. Proud. Sometimes dishonest.”
She looked at the ledger.
“But elaborate financial fraud wasn’t his style.”
Camille stared at her.
“That is a generous distinction.”
“I’m not defending him.”
Teddy tapped the page.
“I’m telling you he hated paperwork.”
That was oddly convincing.
Vaughn searched the old corporate officers.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Martin Coyle.
Grandfather’s chief financial officer.
He had signed several transfer authorizations.
Camille searched him online.
Still alive.
Age eighty-two.
Living outside Williamsburg.
The next morning, Camille’s attorney advised against contacting him.
Camille ignored that advice.
So did I.
Martin Coyle lived in an assisted-living community near a golf course.
He agreed to see us after Dad called.
When we entered, he looked at Dad and began crying.
That scared me.
“I knew somebody would come eventually.”
Dad sat across from him.
“Martin, what happened to Elise?”
The old man closed his eyes.
“Your father loved her.”
“Then why did he steal her company?”
“He didn’t.”
Camille leaned forward.
“Then who did?”
Martin looked at her.
“You must be Elise’s girl.”
“Yes.”
His face collapsed.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
He whispered one name.
“Gerald’s brother.”
Dad froze.
“My uncle Raymond?”
May you like
Martin nodded.
“The man you all buried as a hero.”
